A Musical Basis for Language

Amy Heaton, University of Georgia
Cati Brown, University of Georgia
Joe McFall, University of Georgia

catib@uga.edu

   We find it unnecessary to posit a theory which makes the emergence of
human syntax discontinuous with prelinguistic communication of our
ancestors and inconsistent with recent evidence of music processing.  We
suggest that control of tonal vocal modulation and gesture preceded fine
articulatory motor control, leading the first language speaker to create
differences in meaning through tonal rather than articulatory changes. 
On this view, modern human language has its roots in musical
communication. 

   We contend that a musical basis for language is supported by the
discovery that the same neural resources are employed for similar tasks
in music and language (Patel et.  al.1998).  Furthermore, it is our
position that a musically-based protolanguage would have lent itself to
the production of long holistic utterances rather than discrete units of
meaning (words).  For this reason, we prefer an approach to the
emergence of syntax that is based in holistic protolanguage (Wray 2002). 
We find this approach not only more plausible, but also more useful than
an approach which characterizes protolanguage as consisting of meaning
mapped onto words (Bickerton 1998). 


Patel, Aniruddh D.  et al.  Processing Syntactic Relations in Language
and Music: An Event-Related Potential Study.  Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience (1998), 10:6, 717-733. 

Wray, Alison.  "Dual Processing in Protolanguage: Performance without
competence" in the Transition to Language.  Ed: Alison Wray.  Oxford
University Press.  2002. 

Bickerton, Derek.  "Catastrophic evolution: the case for a single step
from protolanguage to full human language" in Approaches to the
Evolution of Language.  Eds: James R.  Hurford, Michael
Studdert-Kennedy, Chris Knight.  Cambridge University Press.  1998.